Nobody
by Tora-Katana
Summary: Vergil violently cleans out a house without hesitation while one of the guests is watching and records everything, changing her life forever.
1. Chapter 1

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**Nobody**

He was a brief shadow, a mere outline of darkness on the wall with the peeled off paint, a passing smudge in an alley into which no one would even want to send one eye. So short the movement, and so smooth, that your eyes would not even notice as he slinked through the coldness of the night.

He was nobody. Nobody, because no one had the chance to know him, or maybe even see him. Nobody, because anyone who did get to lay their eyes upon him ended up dead, with no one left to tell the tale.

Then you ask, how does it transpire that I know of this nobody? Well as it happens, I saw him. I saw everything, and I still live, for now. I know that my hours are numbered, and I wait with calm and collected soul for the fate that awaits me, but in the meantime…while I wait for his silent steps and cold blade to reach me, I can fill my time by writing this story.

Why do I do this you may ask? And I answer, what better way to repent for my unholy sins, than to let the world know of the one who isn't a mere shadow on someone's decrepit wall, who isn't a nobody that no one speaks of…as he gets the world rid of the scum that imprisons us and suffocates us all…

And I am one of them…

So here it goes. But before I draw the line on these crumpled pieces of paper with my half chewed off pencil from my pocket, there is one more thing I wanted to explain to you. You may ask, how is it that I could know this man enough to write such a story? All I have to offer as an answer is that what I have not seen with my own petrified eyes, I have filled in using my inborn intuition. You see, I have always been a good judge of a character. Just as I have always known, my own father was the most feared drug lord in town, the worst scum of them all.

That is also the main reason why I was in such a place, even though I never belonged there. I was smart enough to know what was going on in there, yet I was stupid enough to think that I would not be held responsible for being there. Stupid, stupid me. Did I really think that by walking about like a passive observer I would be stripped of all responsibility? What do they call it, a silent accomplice? So what if my father would kill me if I didn't do as he said, I should have been stronger, I should have said no. I should have had a life…

Instead, I was weak. Weak, until I saw this dark angel and his frozen beauty. His cold grace and heart-stopping enigma will forever be engraved in my mind. And for that, I thank him, as I have grown stronger. Stronger, and at peace with myself, as I await his judgement, as I wait to die by his hand. It is the least I can do, to write this story, to remember him. But I will keep this story short. For it won't be long, any time now, when he finally comes…

He let out a deep, tired breath. It was so slow and long, it must have served to banish out the past that hung behind him like a black, thickly woven cape. Such cape was hard to take off. For it was a constant reminder, a constant curse. Indestructible. If only he could reach behind him and rip it off, yet all he could do was to accept its weight and hope it would fade with time.

He turned the corner, not one ordinary soul nearby in the silent, autumn, charcoal night. No one's fear would let them venture into these parts. Yet he was so very close. So close to reaching his inner peace, his only Shangri-La. I could see it. It was in his eyes, a deep, bottomless light dominating the frost that seemed forever settled in them. I saw it from the slightly misty window, a feeble disguise that covered my face, a window of what used to be my bedroom just hours ago.

I know now what it was, the hopeful shard of light, as he crept around the corner, oblivious of the half-interested face watching him from above. There must have been nothing on his mind, nothing but the smell of a crackling fire and the musty smell of old books that would fill his senses with peace after a lifelong war.

Or a lifetime spent in hell. After all, he did look like hell itself.

It was not much his clothes, as they were so immaculate, like a prince from a long lost past. It was the way he wore his face. Like his young, flawless features had gained an invisible crease for every bitter disappointment and every betrayal he had to go through in his untold past. A past, I think, I cannot even fathom, even though I have had my fair share of wars.

I kept watching with learned numbness, thinking over what the presence of the figure in the darkness below could possibly mean. Whether I should tell my father. After all, the assortment of characters I have seen during my short lifespan made this one just one more. Nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.

But then it hit my eye, just a prick of light, the smallest reflection. He had something fastened to his belt, and that something wasn't anything I have seen any of my father's so called associates wear. Nor his usual visitors. And I knew, I had to say something.

Peeling myself off the window, I took a stroll out of the room enfolded in murky black. I liked it dark, it made it easier not to see. Easier to feel that I was alone, and in a different place. Another reason to perhaps not tell my father, he didn't like me nosing into things. The scars on my skin carved by his leather belt reminded me every time. What did I know, he could have got himself a brand new business deal. After all, how could he have afforded this new house? Yet how could I just close my eyes every time? Every time something happened and I didn't even ask why? Sometimes I wasn't sure whether my motives were to protect him or pray for his death. How could any daughter want the latter? What kind of a person did that make me?

I asked that question every time, when I was about to tell him of something I saw, or heard. What _was_ I hoping for? My head slipped through the door and into the light. I couldn't see him, but his thundering voice just happened to spill through the opulent lounge below. He always liked to be heard.

"Where is he! I don't tolerate incompetence! You will get him here now, or tell him the deal is off. And when I mean off, I mean off," I didn't have to see it to know my father made a gesture that I knew didn't mean to cut off one's head. It was usually what he did to ruin someone so that they could not make business with him again. At least that was what I liked to imagine. As he was in one of his never ending foul moods, I decided to pull back yet again.

I didn't know it then, why he came. I assumed my father made yet another deal, as I secretly called them, even though I knew what they really were. I paid no attention, as in this house is all that they were, business deals. Nothing more went on, not inside these thick, old walls. Or in any other house. It was my father's rule.

That is why it was so heavily guarded too, if one could call it guarded; one room after another overflowing with one gob uglier than the other, all so heavily clanking with whatever arsenal they could carry. I wasn't even sure if they were capable of using all those contraptions they called weapons. But I didn't care to find out. They looked menacing enough and that was good enough for me.

That is why I retracted back to my bedroom, only this time to the last window, my cheek pressing slowly against the cold glass, to follow the narrow figure with my half-interested eyes. Just another business transaction, just as father said…

He was now at the rear entrance, the part of the house I liked the most. That is why I relentlessly begged for this room to be my bedroom, as the others preferred to pitch their tent in the front of the house, and the rear was mostly left in darkness. Plus it had a view of the garden, the place where only a handful of goons slinked around with their automatics. But it was where I could see them the least.

In fact I would not have seen the figure passing through the deep, crooked-tree-made shadows, was it not for the somewhat light hair. They were not blonde, at least not from what I could tell at that time, as the trickle of moonlight reaching through the beastly branches played a silvery trick on them.

Seeing the guard with his big gun at the back door come out, I propped my chin on the palm of my hand, waiting for the routine question that greeted all the visitors to the house. I even whispered it in my head…_the password_. And then I would reply…_Bugs Bunny_.

Only this time, it was the man with what I established as the silver hair who did the talking. At first, he appeared stunned when he saw the guard, as if taken by surprise, as I took in a full view of his moonlit face. He looked like an angel and a devil in one. The tranquil light he had in his eyes, it evaporated, like a fragile fairy stroked by a beam of the hottest sun. It vanished to be replaced by a smoldering, thick dark smoke.

It startled me enough to blink my eyes, after which it left me with a view I didn't dream of expecting. The guard's head slid cleanly from his neck and rolled to the ground. I didn't even see how it happened, was that what they called in a blink of an eye? The body lingered just for a while, just like my hanging open mouth, then it toppled forth, into the outstretched arm of the silver-haired man.

I could swear I let out a silent scream, I didn't hear anything myself, but he must have. As those eyes rose, they rose to look straight at me. They were so calm, the smoke now well gone, the initial surprise changed into a cold world I would never want to know. He looked at me so assuredly, as if he knew I was there all along. Then, just before I could breathe again, or take in the deadly beauty of his eyes, he averted his benumbing gaze, his attention stolen by something in the garden.

Of course, I have completely forgotten the six men prowling the grounds like armored hedgehogs, and I secretly prayed that he would get away from them. _Just run_, I whispered when I got back my senses, my closing frightened lips leaving a smudge on the chilly glass. I was afraid, I was so afraid but I could not tear my eyes of the scene unfolding below, as I have never seen anyone do that before. No one dared.

He pulled up the dead body to cover his own as the first shower of bullets pierced the air. How did he know, I am to never find out. As the shots were silenced, like death messengers on air. My father had the sense to request the use of silencers in and outside the house, to draw close to no attention to the newly acquired mansion where he hoped nobody would bother him.

They moved swiftly after the first shots, their shadows moving through the trees shedding their leaves below my window. They reopened fire, and I could see the man's lithe body jerk backwards in response. Oh yes, they used armor piercing rounds, the best kind and the worse. Those little bastards passed through the dead body and I could see them sinking into his torso, blood stains spilling on the pristine clothes, blooming into dark purple.

_I told you to run… _

My breath hitched but I didn't know what I was feeling. I wanted to be sad, as I didn't want them to win again. They always won, they never let me leave, get out of this opulent prison I hated. Not without my daddy at least. But how could I be such a disloyal daughter to think such thoughts? Yet I would be too numb to care either way, was it not for those eyes; they planted something new in me, something I didn't quite yet ascertain at that time. All I knew was that I didn't want him to die. I wanted _them_ to die.

And for once, someone out there listened.

For he threw away the heavily bleeding man-shield, and instead pulled out something that I caught only a glimpse of the first time round. But before I could protest that the gun was mightier than the sword, well at least from a long distance as that much I knew, he did something I will never forget.

He used that thin sword of his as a personal shield, a fan, it was spinning round with such lightning speed that it swallowed all the bullets like dead flies swept from an old cobweb. Only much more classy than that. When he lowered the sword, a katana as I recognized it from a film I saw, he laid all the shots on the slate paved path, like little soldiers ready to strike back.

If I didn't know better, I would say I was lying, but I am not. As he lifted those eyes again to me, as if wanting to make sure I was watching him. I knew then that it was all for real.

The heavily armed men stopped dead in their confident tracks. The dead leaves ceased moving even though there was still a breeze. I know there was, because it swept through his light hair, letting a curled white strand fall gently into his marble face. Strange how he didn't look like a cold-blooded killer right then, he never did to me.

Then, the blade turned around his arm, I couldn't even follow its path, but it swept those bullets perfectly. What happened to the shells was obvious a few of my shallow breaths later, as the six men froze stupefied, clutching their chests. A wet dark stains erupted on their cotton gray clothes. Then their knees gave way. They fell like statues without pedestals, one by one, like live dominos.

And I silently cheered. I cheered, even though I somehow knew that it would be the end of me too.

At least that is what his eyes, still flattening me to the window, have silently promised. I wanted to ask why, but they turned away as if knowing I would not like the answer, or maybe they were just tormenting me for something I have done – or more for what I haven't done. _I will leave you for last_, they said. At least, that is what I thought because what else could eyes like that promise? Cold, so cold and deadly. He killed seven men without blinking or speaking a word. I didn't know why, but I didn't care. All I knew was that I needed to see this end. So I run from my bedroom, from my dark observatory, and stuck my head out into the great, brightly lit hall.

I saw my father this time, sifting through some paperwork, an angry face distorting his features. A bunch of gunslingers hung like watchdogs on his every move. I ignored them, I didn't warn them, and instead run quietly along the long gallery into the next room, where I could see the door that led to the rear entrance. It was the kitchen, the door to my father's lair was still closed.

Eight heavily bored servitors lounged around the massive room filled with the scent of meat. Some played with knives, throwing them or digging them into the expensive hardwood, some sticking their dirty noses in the walk-in fridge, some snored with their guns next to their drooping heads; yeah like they could wake up and draw before they got their heads chopped off... I knew I shouldn't think like that, but they did never have any qualms about tying me to a seat or worse, when my father tried to educate me about being a good girl.

So now,_ I_ got the best seat in the theatre, crouching just in the corner, behind the curtain of the galleried landing. And I watched the door slowly open. Let's see how they like to be educated.

No one noticed anything, at least not at first. He somehow disguised the creak that usually accompanied the opening of the door, and I was slightly disappointed to miss the stupid looks on their faces as they would all turn their heads to him. Instead, he got the first two way too silently, even guiding their fallen heads to the floor with his gloved hand to muffle the fall. It didn't occur to me until later that he was doing it to make the least mess, nor did I notice amidst the gruesome show that the holes on his chest that should still be there were gone.

As I was busy watching. And then came the fridge. He simply walked past, and kicked the door closed, turning up the cold. Maybe he was leaving that one for later, as a frozen bullock.

Walking on, he slinked behind the solid oak kitchen table, his long coat giving the slightest swish as he rounded the corner. He stood behind the goon that was carving something into the wood for a good few seconds, before the buffoon even noticed.

Looks like the stranger didn't like what the bruiser was doing as he grasped the hilt of the knife, together with the goon's cracking hand. It must have been crushing. I mean, the machete guy had muscles bulging out of everywhere, and this new guy didn't look like much under that long trench of his, yet slowly, without making a sweat, he forced the baboon's shaking hand underneath his chin.

Then the stranger's eyes must have carved something back into the sweating man's mind. He didn't make a peep, his eyes bulging out, face red from the effort, whatever he was trying to do. Then, the knife went straight through his ugly, swollen face. All the way from the base of the chin up through his skull. He didn't peep then either. He was dead.

By then, the three using knives as darts to hit a target drawn up with meat sauce on the pristine white wall turned around. Instantly going to red alert, as they saw most of their buddies butchered, they tossed the knives they held at the intruder in blue. At that point, my heart skipped a beat. I was waiting for him to get a full hit in his satin face. They were so fast. But he was faster, as if he slowed time itself. To me, it seemed like the blades flew right through his face. But then I realized, he simply tilted his white head as now two tendrils of hair dropped into his forehead, and some to the sides, a few feathery clutches falling weightlessly to the floor. The blades hit the wall behind harmlessly, clanking to the floor.

Before their brains could catch up and tell them to reach for some more ammunition, I saw a flash of pale blue light. Like the northern lights. Beautiful, but frightening, like some alien phenomenon. The vapors formed into much bigger knives, three of them, daggers I'd say. Shimmering with frosty retaliation, just like his eyes, eyes that were saying with mocking confidence, _you call that knives? No, these are knives!_ They hurled to pierce their heads dead centre.

It made me satisfied. I will not make any excuses. It just did. This whole place made me bad, and I knew I was bad. I knew, as I was waiting for the last gun for hire to be killed. The one that was sleeping, still. I shifted slightly to get a better view. Damn me.

He got it just as I predicted. The guy wouldn't wake up in time for his own funeral. The lithe katana flashed by the droopy head, leaving it slide down into the guy's own lap. Clean and precise. I wish I could chop cabbages like that, but me and knives didn't mix well. I never knew which one was best for what, so I left it to them. It appears, that they didn't know either.

I expected that far reaching, aurora borealis look from him again. But he didn't look up this time, he went straight for the door to the main lounge. Maybe he knew that I was watching everything now, that I had the best seat in the house. But secretly, I wished that he would, as every time he looked at me I knew I was closer to freedom. The shackles were dropping off, one at a time. Every time he made a kill.

Or maybe he was still tormenting me, knowing that the last shackle to remove…would be the one on my neck.

Still, like a fragile moth drawn to a burning light, I picked myself up from the floor and crept back to dunk down above the lounge. I loved this layout really, it was so easy to see what was going on down below, and to spy.

He opened the door like he was invited to dinner. The best party in town. I thought he almost smiled but it was just in my imagination. Yet again, no one noticed at first. He stopped, raking his beige gloved hand through his fair, shiny hair. He seemed to like them up. It suited him really, but I still liked that one strand hanging down, it made him less menacing. Or was it more? I couldn't quite decide.

He could have just started killing but for some reason he waited. Waited for them to make the first move. Or maybe he got bored because it was too easy. Or he was checking out their artillery. Funny, how every single one of them thought they were above the law, and above everything and everyone else. Even death.

Especially my father's personal dogs, the ten in this very lounge. Always with their big guns; they went to sleep with them, went to piss with them, or even to take a dump. Disgusting really. How could anyone so paranoid be above death? I could never guess.

Damn, I almost missed it. The face my father wore when he finally spotted the man. Utter perplexity and brewing anger. I knew he was already planning a suitable punishment for whoever let that man in. Usually a hole in the head. And if it wasn't anybody's fault in particular, he would just pick someone. There were always enough goons for hire.

They all stared. Waiting for something to happen. I almost sneezed. Damn this cold, where did it suddenly come from? Then I looked back down and I knew. It came from my father, since he spoke.

"What are you doing here!" It was a growl, with an unpleasant arrogant undertone. It usually meant the questionee was soon to be dead. I crouched even lower.

"I could ask you the same question." I couldn't believe it. The man spoke for the first time. And his voice, it was even more terrifying than my father's. It had that silky rich and deep smoothness that could either melt anything or create panic. On me, it had the first effect.

He came for something, but I didn't know what it was. He was waiting to get it. And the goons went into cold panic. This wasn't good.

"Who are you," my father asked, growing a little wearier. He signaled his guard dogs to aim their guns.

"I am the landlord."

I really was melting in that death-promising voice, not even realizing what he had said at first.

It was then that the chaos started. It was then that I heard the shots flying, each being batted back, right back into the centre of their scowling foreheads. His blade would move with such an inhuman swiftness that all I could see were flashes of blue lights, and I heard whizzing of bullets as they ricocheted of places on the walls where there were no antiques or tapestries.

And only then it sank in, that while he had been waiting, he hadn't been bored or checking out their guns, he had been planning their executions in such a way that his own possessions would not get damaged in the process. Nothing like a man who takes a good care of his long collected things. A sentimental soul. I always wondered who they belonged to, as they were already there when we moved in. But my father always said that it was deserted, that the owners were long dead. I thought he knew well.

I always expected a ghost, and maybe it was a ghost who came. But he didn't look dead. More like an angel of death. As he left my father for last, like an angel would. My dark angel.

That is when my pulse started to speed up a little. The worst monster in town he might have been, but he was still my father. The only family left. How could any daughter wish her own father dead?

But then he lifted those eyes to me again. His glove soaking with the blood of the guard dogs, he had the neck of their owner in his steel grip. I knew now that it was like steel, I saw what happened to the buffoon with the knife.

My breath hitched and I couldn't move. _Do it already._ _Do you want my approval?_ I wanted to shout. _Why do you torment me asshole! Because I am a bad girl?_

But all he did was keep peering into my eyes. And I saw those enigmatic northern lights again, eternal, engraving forever in my mind. Was it to prolong my agony, or was he searching for something? What did he want? _Please tell me, what do you want?_

Then, suddenly, he looked away. His hand squeezed harder, and my father's heart stopped beating. Just like that. The most feared boss in town, now dead by one squeeze of a hand. I bet he never thought he would go that way.

The papers lay strewn on the floor, some still floating in the room, probably a shipment of more drugs. Guns lay on the floor, next to their dead owners. All the antiques and tapestries were left in their places, intact and in peace. The world seemed better, and my pulse began to slow down again.

I sat tighter against the wall. I knew what was to come. I was next. The stranger, the landlord, the real owner of this house, he dropped my father's body like it was another useless thing he didn't need. I watched him with steady beat, as he walked out of the lounge, using the door on the other side. The door that lead upstairs, to me.

That is when I pulled out the paper and pen from my pocket. Yes, I did a lot of snooping, and I wrote things down. It was my long lost dream, to be a reporter. Now, I had something worthwhile to write at last. But I had to be quick, as he would be coming soon…

Or so I thought.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I never came back, just as he never came for me. And I never saw him again. I reckoned he didn't want to be seen or disturbed. Why else would he clean the house of all the trash?

Only after two years, as I write this for myself, I finally understand why he let me go.

Each time he looked at me, it was not death he promised, he wanted me to stay away. He wanted me to stay away, because the thing he was looking for was peace. Peace and quiet, and to be left alone. Just like a veteran soldier returning from war, returning to his own beloved home, only to find it defaced by those that he had no desire of fighting in the first place.

But he could still live in peace knowing all he did was to take out the trash that no one else would bother to throw away. And at the same time, this is exactly why he didn't kill me. How could he do what he wanted to do, if he had killed a woman, an unarmed woman. With that last searching glare of his, he must have realized that I was not beyond repair. Only because of him, I myself realized I could still do better. Maybe I had something in my eyes that he saw, just like I saw that light in his.

I don't really know. But now, as I look up to the sky, and see some lights in the deep charcoal night, all I can do is to thank him that he was right. I went on with my life, quite an ordinary life; with all the joy, boredom, sadness, and wonderfulness I could possibly imagine. He put my past into the bin, and I took it out with the morning trash.

But there is one thing I kept. This story. Though I will never let anyone read it, not ever, as long as I am alive. After all, I know that he wouldn't want to be known to the world, that all he wanted was to be left alone in his own home.

So I only read it when I feel down, to remind myself how my life could have turned out. But then I think of him every single day with a shuddering breath. And I know, watching the news, that he was indeed left to his peace…

…I left him to be nobody…

_The end_


	2. Part 2

**NOBODY**

**PART 2**

_I only read this story when I feel down, to remind myself of how my life could have turned out if he has not crossed my path. But then I think of him every single day with a shuddering breath as I'd like to think, watching the uneventful news, that he was thankfully left to his much wanted peace…_

Or so I thought.

I should have known that evil never sleeps, at least not for very long. It was that night, the unusually black starless night a few days ago, when I heard it on the news. A young girl died. Barely fifteen. She was the third in just three weeks. The first two have gone missing, only their blood was found smeared in the streets. Like spouting stains dragged out with a mop.

The latest slit her wrists, they said. Needles to add, having access thanks to my great new job, I went to see for myself, and as I expected, it was far from the truth. Her arm had been left bruised and horribly burned to cover the telltale, fateful needle marks. Only they didn't finish their grisly cover-up. They have been disturbed, or simply didn't care in their filthy arrogance.

I couldn't sleep that night, just like tonight - sitting outside, watching the stars come to life in the disturbingly darkening sky. So they returned. Bringing death back to this damned town. I suppose it had to happen sometime. Only I thought, like everyone else, that they never would. I never thought I would see anyone like them again, not after what had happened over two years ago. It had them all scared. Damn scared. It kept the city in a blissful peace. Peace from crime. The unexplained vanishing of an entire drugs gang in one night. Just like that, without a trace. The news had kept running with it for so long, it became an urban legend. '_The black death claims the crime gang.' or 'A reprieve at last for a crime ridden city.' _

I laughed. And I kept it to myself. Only I knew it was no black death but a black angel. My secret dark angel, who kept me living all this time - by killing everyone else in my life. It wasn't enough though. I so wish I could have done more as I stare wonderingly at the fading lights outside. All the buried dark secrets, all the injustice done so cruelly to an innocent world, all the corruption by the powerful no one dares to question or even mention. Even I keep it quiet. No one would believe me. I am powerless. Stricken down by those who have been paid, like the little lapdogs my father used to keep.

A shudder of deep chill sliding down my spine is all that is left for me to feel.

I would have rolled a cigarette if I smoked. Isn't that what the hopeless do? Inhale a fag and hope the shivers of fear will go away? I don't smoke. So instead, I gaze at the sky, hoping to see something else; a sign. A sign that at the same time I hope to never see. It is strange, for I have never seen the aurora borealis until two years ago. And despite wishing for something to happen so badly, just one more chance for proving my own pathetic worth, I could never wish to take his peace away.

Stupid and selfish, that's what I am. Though it is what started to happen three weeks ago that made me see the pair of magnetic, arctic-windswept eyes again. I see them everywhere and in everything. They haunt me. They compel me to reach for the old, used paper I keep with me all the time, and read it one more time to bring their unwavering fearlessness closer to me, closer to my despairing soul…

'_I know that my hours are numbered, and I wait with calm and collected soul for the fate that awaits me, but in the meantime…while I wait for his silent steps and cold blade to reach me, I can fill my time by writing this story_. _But I will keep this story short. For it won't be long, any time now, when he finally comes…'_

_He will not come._

I look up with a strain of fright battering my heart as I perceive strong presence so near me I could reach out and touch its unbelievable chill. Yet when I finally dare to move and turn my head, it is only the leaves on the twisted tree underneath which I sit that cast waltzing shadows into my startled eyes.

Letting out a slow shuddering breath of relief, I put my papers away and pick myself up, wanting to go back inside. It would do this world even less good if I got myself killed, no matter how small a difference I could ever make. Still, I cannot help but cast one more destitute gaze at the star-bright sky, wishing for one more miracle, just one more chance, searching silently for even the smallest change or a flicker of light.

The need overpowers me so cruelly in the silent, unmoving night that I have to reach for an empty sheet of crinkled, yellowing paper that I held so many times in my hesitant hand. Rubbing the piece of old memory between my fingers as I pull out a pen, I know what I need to do. If nothing but to feel better, I have to bring the miracle to me, even if I have to drag it out from nothing and nowhere, word by word...

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

It crept over my already cold body as I walked on the slippery stone path to my house. Like a breath of a ghost I knew I couldn't shake off, it was there, the presence again, waiting somewhere above me as if to pounce on me when I was to walk under it. Yet it drew my eyes upwards, wanting me to stop in my tracks and gaze.

So I gazed. Though instead of a ghost there was a real-life silhouette. Not just any silhouette but one I would recognize instantly. The long straight back, ends lifting gently in the intermittent breeze. The soft spikes, inviting the glow of the moonlight to turn bright silver in the dark night. The distinct long shape of a sheathed sword, held closely to a tall, statuesque form.

Not one of us spoke, and by the time my eyes so foolishly flicked away to thank the ever-present stars, he was gone without a sound or a perceivable movement. I remained staring at the now empty spot, the image of him persistently imprinted to the back of my eyes.

He needn't say anything though, for I knew exactly what he wanted. I had to deliver on my silent promise and become the better person, fearless of the stinky trash that needed to be taken out. Strange how he knew that I had it in me all this time, only needed that one last push, a gift of encouragement – from him.

The next morning, I woke up with a stubborn resolve. My job was to investigate for crying out loud, and that's what I was going to do if it killed me. Picking up my indispensable gear which consisted of a tape recorder, pen and paper, I set off straight for the police station.

I asked, no- demanded, to speak to the cop who'd closed the case without as much as a single backward glance. His welcome was a hostile surprise mixed with mocking arrogance. A female reporter would be easy to deal with, he no doubt thought. Even my tough questions didn't throw him, yet I knew that he was hiding something. He became evasive and pushed me out of the door, mouthing a threatening warning to stay out of it when no others could see. She had killed herself, he said, as no one dared to set their dirty footsteps around here anymore.

I didn't believe the first part one bit, but the second I had to agree with. Crime lords drew a cross across their shoulders and turned their backs at the mere thought of coming our way. One should be happy, but I wasn't. Something was very off.

Recording everything as was my old habit, I visited the crime scene next. Someone must have seen something I insisted in my head as I strode confidently from business to business and from house to house, knocking on the doors. Again, not much more than evasiveness and fear greeted me, but each time a little snippet of the puzzle has been placed on the blank canvas of my mind.

Exhausted, on the brink of twilight, I ventured into a narrow lane where the last houses I wanted to check out were hiding in a darkening blind end. Looking down at the old cobbles lining the alley, a solid thought started to take a shape in my head. The girl had been killed, that was certain. But who would have everyone so scared, even defying the urban legend… The question remained pasted to the tip of my tongue when I felt a shadow slither along the wall on my left.

Becoming petrified in a frozen moment of time, the boldness which I wasn't sure I liked soon took over and set me on the move. Only I moved deeper into the alley rather than away from it as I should have done if I had any sense. To my inward relief, at least I didn't call out to whoever was there like the usual stupid victim, but sneaked quietly along the shadowed side of the lane. What I didn't count on however was how loudly my heart was beating, so invitingly pounding into the deafening black silence around me as I flipped my body round the corner.

The pounding in my chest spilled uncontrollably into my brain as a shrieking scream pierced my ear and I felt myself being yanked harshly backwards, landing hard on the stone pavement. The fall must have shaken me back to my senses as all noises ceased instantly and my eyes looked around for my attacker.

Thinking of getting up and getting the hell out of there, I instead froze completely to the cold cobbles as I stared straight in front of me. There was what I wished to see, now dreading my presence as I was unable to even breathe.

Three or four shadows expanded on the wall, prolonging to grotesque humanly shapes. One hand stretched and stretched further to me, becoming larger than my whole body, lifting right above me. It held a knife, as large as five butcher knives tied together. If I didn't know better, I'd say it looked like a frigging reaper.

It struck so quickly I only had the time to open my mouth into an ear-shredding scream. The terrible scream though didn't come from me. It had come from a young girl, being very close, and I just managed to shift slightly to peak round the corner as I had tried to do before. Nothing stopped me anymore, to my deep regret, as what I saw I had always managed to turn away from before. Not this time.

Teeth tottering, my eyes became glued in horror to the four hooded figures bending over their dying victim. They didn't seem to waste time covering up the murder as their heads dipped down, returning back up full of torn off pieces from the young girl's flesh. Blood splattered in a perfectly straight line with every frightening chuckle they made throwing back their heads as they gorged on the lifeless body, only spurts of gurgling coming from the girl's bloodied throat.

It made me sick, and I just had to let go. Momentarily breaking contact so that I could splatter not much less sickening contents of my stomach to the floor below me, I suddenly realized what noise I made. Whipping my head right back up without even wiping my mouth, I let my eyes tell me instantly that I was in deep shit.

Their charcoal faces all stared at me, chunks of dripping flesh still hanging from their mouths. In a blinding instant they made half of the distance between the dead body and me. They were no drug dealers, I have never seen anything like it. They had no guns, no normal clothes, and their eyes were deep red.

In a hysteric frenzy, I scrambled to my feet, running in slow motion compared to the alarmingly nearing clacks on the cobbles. _I will never make it_ run through my racing mind as I desperately reached into my pocket. I pulled out my pen, thrusting it behind me before I half turned, the feel of a cold breath lapping at my sweating neck.

Tears broke out in my eyes when the awful spray of sticky blood reached the side of my face. I foolishly debated whether it was mine or one of the murderers' stabbed with my pen, when I slipped and tumbled down onto my hands and knees painfully. Flipping over with my pen clenched in my hand, I thrust it forth at whatever may come, when my eyes widened beyond the disbelief I had been long feeling.

One of the tall hooded figures stood before me, a deep scarlet hole gaping in the middle of its chest. Against my better judgment, I tilted my head to look through the massive hole to see the wall on the other side, then inspected my pen suspiciously. No, it couldn't be…

Drawing my face into an expression of denial, sure enough, as I blinked, the head was falling off its shoulders. Yet I saw nothing, not even a ripple in the air, not one clue to the attacker who was attacking those unconventional killers, whoever or whatever they were.

All I could think about at that very moment – as the head kept falling to the cold, dark pavement – was that I needed him to take out more trash than before, and this time, watch him doing it up close. To smell the blood, to watch the evil fall, to watch his divine face lift in triumph of the kill… To fill me with invincibility.

The grotesque, shriveling head bounced of the ground, a grisly jet of red squirting out. With a two second delay, the body crumpled like a detonated building, letting me enjoy the moment with my arms open while taking in a deeply inhaled breath. Every bit of space the falling foe's mass freed, it revealed a bit of him; the spikes bathed in silver of the moonlit beam, head bowed down in disguised humility into the wide shoulders garbed in blue, the endlessly straight curve of the flowing trench coat… And the liquid mercury of blood dripping ever so slowly from the blindingly resplendent blade.

I wanted to take the best seat and pay premium for the front row. I was bad again. I imagined clapping my hands and screaming in a frenzy of a crazed admirer, but I remained glued to my spot with bruised knees, the show only barely starting. This time was different though. I was not just the spectator.

Out of the blue, there were a dozen of them, leaping like silent balled up ninjas from the raven darkness. All at once, all at his deadpan form. And mine.

Twenty four hands, somehow suddenly clawed, curled inward like those of a praying mantis, flew elegantly through the air. Jaws expanded out of proportion from the hoods that fell back due to atmospheric resistance. They looked like – bloodthirsty vampires! Still he didn't blink, didn't move, just like me, only his hair stirred by the disturbed air and the scarlet droplets detached in a savage rhythm from the tip of his slender, motionless, naked sword.

I drew in a sharp breath, mouth near detaching from my jaw when I lifted up my forearm to shield my overwhelmed eyes. A vapor of deep blue swirled around me and through my parted fingers, as I stared through them at the unfolding violence.

Like the freakiest lightning I have ever seen, maddeningly fast flashes illuminated the night and the faces as they twisted in the most horrid ways just before the eyes burst into an eruption of bloody pulps. Strangely enough, they reminded me of something, in the nightmare of a fright-fest night, I saw them like I knew them even though it couldn't be in a million years. I never watched those gory films, I had enough of that in a real life.

Still, the feeling of a déjà vu entrapped me as I peered at the angelic, scarily flawless face set in pale stone amongst the flying blood and gore, and the horrifyingly ugly yet unnervingly familiar monsters. Their twisting faces revealed one by one, they brought me to my life over two years ago, a shameful, low life I never wanted to relive again.

A warm, viscid metallic spray painted my face, tearing me back to the present. I wanted to flee but I couldn't move. I had to drink it in, the feeling of might and the powerlessness of the powerful. I was bad, bad as I have ever been. I would watch the massacre till the end, till my eyes couldn't cry anymore, till my teeth ground through each other. As long as I could see evil banished from this town again. As long as I could soak in the strength from his unfailing, indestructible dominance.

The flesh tearing fangs of a few heads plunged straight into his glass neck, and I blanched at my unripe, premature thoughts.

Damn me for wishing him immortal simply to satisfy my need to bring justice to evil so easily. Nothing came too easily. Now I have brought destruction on my own dream, and I have pulled myself down back to the ground.

Yet as they pushed away with grisly mouthfuls of his ripped out flesh, he did not falter once, his blade slicing off their faces before they could swallow.

Awed gape visited my face as I watched him catch his own blooded flesh falling from their wide open mouths before their bodies folded to the ground. With an annoyed scowl he then slapped the gruesome mess back to his neck as if swatting a pesky fly. It stayed there, stitching itself back. Oh my god.

An old memory flashed before my eyes. How could I have missed it then? Those countless bullets drilling so brutally into his torso, yet he had found a way to go on as if they were balls of paint. I had been so blinded by my own bloodlust that I had not seen… That he could not have been human.

Would it have made a difference? No. Not back then, though it would make a difference now. My dream, and that of this miserable, messed up town, was right back on track. The raven black corruption was in for a nasty surprise. I cheered but kept it down. For now, I would leave the investigation of this incredulous revelation for later since first I had to concentrate on getting out of here alive. Even then, I would keep it to myself. Maybe.

Still shaking like a rabbit caught in strong headlights, I forced his strength and madness to bleed into me so that I could go on. I lifted myself up to my feet, and with the sounds of the never-ending blood-curdling slashes followed by harrowing cries, I started to sneak away. Putting my pen back into my pocket when I was about to take a turn out of the alley, I whipped round so fast at the horrifyingly inhuman voice right at my rear that I cut open my finger. Shit.

"Leaving so soon?"

I must have stared blankly for some time as an impatient twitch skipped across his ice cold portrait of a face and his narrow mouth shaped slightly to tell a few words he must have deemed sufficient for me to know. It wasn't much.

"Should you wish to stop them, find out whom to kill," the voice changed from a nightmarish gargoyle growl to a deep human, velvety baritone. He flicked the blade to the side so fast I only heard the sickening mighty splash of blood on the wall followed by a clear click of the sheath. All the while, his multidimensional, fear provoking eyes never left mine and I couldn't help but wonder yet again why he hadn't killed me two years ago.

_Not me!_ "Whom to kill?" I choked out while remembering to try not to sound scared as he might have reacted to fear the bad way. Didn't animals attack the fearful? Hadn't he sounded like an animal?

"The humans. I cannot read them," he spoke darkly, eyebrows slightly drawn into the makings of a displeased frown.

_Yes! Then I'm safe?_ _Wishfully._ "The humans?" I probed uneasily, his absolute tone making it sound like I should have known something all along. Although I had seen many monsters, unfortunately the supernatural or extraterrestrial kind had neither crossed my mind, nor my path.

"Who else. Ultimately, they have been too foolish to bring them back," he said cryptically, not moving an inch.

"Bring back whom?" I asked confused, looking around as if someone else should stand right there in the dark alley where there were nightmare creatures just seconds ago, thinking I must have sounded like a right halfwit. When I turned back to face him though, he was gone, only a swirl of fuzzy air floating where he had stood. Dammit. He could have at least given me a better start. I had literally nothing to go on.

Well at least he had talked more than the last time, and those horrid things were now gone. Yet the suddenly eerily quiet street made me acutely aware of my solitary presence. As an air of trepidation seeped into my lungs, I made for a hasty exit and run straight back home.

I got almost used to not sleeping for the past few weeks but this time, the thoughts that kept me awake were very much different. They weren't about what I couldn't do, but what I could. I had to know the truth now that he watched from the shadows without being only a shadow in my dreams. Just like two years ago when I had been charged up with the strength to make a change. Now the change will be for this diseased city where I grew up. _About time_.

I jumped out of the bed still dressed, and without breakfast took off, back to the police station. The officer in charge of the case came to see me and ushered me out to an empty room about to give me another lesson in not butting in.

In return I made it clear he would not get rid of me so easily this time. Saying I knew they had disguised the evidence and that I was aware about the monsters, even though I didn't really know anything about them, his paling face told me more than he did pleadingly as he backed me out of the room.

"Just go, get out of here. For God's sake, we just wanted to get paid, to get our jobs back. We never thought they would eat them."

When he squeezed me out of the building I turned in horror at his last words, whipping in slow motion as my brain worked my mouth before I could stop it.

"You tell me who is responsible, or I will go to the metro-media." I stared at his scared face amazed at my own boldness, my mouth still open as if not believing what I had just said. The media would never believe me either yet I could be killed simply for making this empty threat.

He gazed back with saddened eyes, then his head shook in a defeated admission. "You can't stop it, no matter what you did. No one can."

"Just tell me!" I found myself grinding through my teeth, suddenly attacked by a rush of contempt. He was a cop, a captain, and scared shitless. God help us.

He looked around, as if to check if anyone was listening, then said in a hushed up voice. "Everyone. Everyone in the highest places." Then he disappeared behind closed door.

A frightening thought took hold of my whirring mind as I numbly walked away. What have they done? Did they invite some gang here to bring crime back to town? To then get paid to turn a blind eye? Those monstrous things though, they were eating that poor girl, hardly a profitable crime. Did they drug her up first? It didn't make sense. Oh my God! They ate the first two. Only smudges of blood remained. But who are those hooded men? Some flesh eating cult? A clan of criminal cannibals? Neither appealed to me in the slightest. I shook from head to toe in pure disgust.

All I knew at that very moment wasn't much, regardless, I had to stop it. I needed to make a list. A kill list. For him. Now I knew what the swordsman meant and it filled me with the coldest of chills. On top of it, what had he meant by not being able to read humans? Who _was_ he able to read? Those like him? There are more like him?

Not wanting the answer back just yet, I returned to the list. It had to start with the easiest one. The biggest high placed coward in town should provide all I needed. With a little help from a certain dark angel.

…I would start with the Supreme Judge.


	3. Part 3

_A/N: This story has been a bit out of the norm for me and because of the limited writing time I now have I have decided to make this the last chapter. It may seem a little confusing but I hope you'll still like it._

_Tora_

**NOBODY**

**PART 3**

I held my taste for violence in me with bitterness and shame. Yet I could not escape from it or detach it and throw it away. I had used to find myself strapped to a chair, with my little feet dangling, forced to watch how punishment was to be made to those either unable or unwilling to yield to power and corruption. My child eyes hadn't quite seen the true horrors then, nor had my small mind understood, not until the truth had soon caught up with me when the bleak reality had started to sink in deeper and deeper.

Not the way my narrow-minded papa had thought.

Living in a cage of brutality all my life, I had become bound with the need to see violence like I need the air to breathe, to survive. My father would have loved that. Only there was one thing I did manage to change. It was my biggest secret, one that no one else would ever get to know.

Cunningly, and in silenced resentment, I had survived by twisting the story in my head so it was the evil who received the beating, and not the innocent. This little lie had worked, too well, growing in me ever since. So now, despite my lingering unease and distaste, I can at least live with my lust for unconventional justice and still be able to sleep at night without waking up screaming in a cold sweat.

Saying that, right now I had to take advantage of all the sleep I could get. So I took a long energizing nap, waiting for the moon to outshine the obsidian night. I liked it that way as the moon was the only pure thing not afraid to be out in the dark. Stepping outside after slipping on my black hooded coat, the one I used for my sneakier investigations, I checked I blended well into the darkness. Being unseen was my specialty ever since I was a child. Usually, it hadn't required much effort. Funny though, I had always been found when I had wanted it the least. _Let's hope my rotten luck will change._

Stealing a casual glance back at the loose tile just below my window, I briefly stopped in my tracks to gaze. The note I had left there the night before was gone. A satisfied smile graced my face as I turned and headed back to town.

It wasn't difficult to know where the Judge would be. Predictability was at large in this town. Worked for me.

What worked even better was the fact that he lived in a house so bloated, it needed even larger plot to fit. Which meant no nosy neighbors, only a plenty of bushes to slink around in.

Blending in like a black cat under a starless, moon-hazed night, I snuck up under the dimly lit window of his big fat residence. Lifting my head just far enough to be able to see inside, I searched for the sole occupant, my breath stalling in my throat in a hope that he would indeed be alone. He was.

What I didn't expect was that I nearly puked with my hand against my mouth when I saw him. I really had to stop doing that. One would have thought I should have been able to stomach pretty much anything after what I had used to witness. Not without my teeth pressed so tightly as to suppress my natural need to scream. Yet perhaps ironically my continuous experiences had made me take these greedy assholes even worse.

The slab of meat he was gorging on seemed less greasy than the fat that dripped from his large shimmering mouth and across his double chin illuminated for extra shine by several thick as a pig candles. His opulent dining got him so disgustingly fat that heart disease began to eat at his life. _Don't let me wait!_ That's why he was so scared, not sure whether it was of dying or not being able to eat anymore.

_This is going to be too easy._ Shame I forgot to include the presence of my dark angel before I said that as the decaying silence made it clear that he wasn't there.

Then again, if he could move and kill as if being a possessed whiff of air… _Where is he!_

In an instinct I have learned quite recently my eyes lifted to look at the sloping roof. Pitch black stared back at me mockingly, sending chill up my spine to make the hair at the back of my neck stand on end. The emptiness laughed at me and yet stayed starkly silent, forcing a disheartening thought flash through my mind. What if he never got the note? There was a slight breeze and I never checked the thicket below my window to see if the paper had simply fallen down.

Shaking off the mental need for a cigarette, I forced my blue eyes to shift to the large man in luxurious clothing sitting at a table built for ten times more people than he had ever invited. Building up in me, the rage of being left alone, excluded and disappointed made me see the Judge for what he really was.

In his dirty, sleazy arrogance laced with cowardly wickedness, he had entered the house of my feared father on many occasions. Closing my eyes, I had recalled my eyes of the past had been always too open not to notice. The countless scumbags from my daddy's little gang, they somehow managed to come back with the red stamp of innocence on their guilty foreheads, their homicidal tendencies stashed away by my father's sizeable wallet. In most cases they were not tendencies, they were a way of life.

I had known, and I knew now as I stared blankly at the Judge's puffy, disgusting face, my sight blaring in front of me. He had been paid, now somehow again able to afford all these unholy feasts, not yet enough to bring back his servants who had been plentiful almost two years ago. To my big advantage.

A vivid flashback of one goon with a grin so wicked plastered on his ugly face as he returned from a trial that should have left him rotting in hell for more years than he would likely live caused me to clench my teeth. Fists tightening alongside my crouching body, I started to move like the avenger of all the forgotten souls and their forever grieving families who never got to see justice bring some light to the darkest chapter of their lives.

All because of this man, a scrofulous man I was going to scare to death to provide me with the names of those connected to this very private, exclusive circle. A circle of the most private, exclusive scumbags.

I reached for the biggest rock I could lift and tossed it through the opulent window, watching with satisfaction as it landed with a heavy crunch right on his oversized dinner, splattering it all over the room. Falling glass shattering on the hard stone floor, the instant draft blown out all the candles at once.

Darkness spilling out from the hollows of the house, I threw in more stones, one after another, ready to leap through the big enough hole into the blackness like an avenging angel, when hellish sounds of animals neared and deafened the din of the breaking glass.

Goddammit! He had hounds!

Suspended halfway up the ledge of a window, a split second decision sealed my action as I let go and jumped back down, just sparing a fast backward glance at the closing in loud shadows before I started to run without a second thought. A bleak vision of the monsters from the alley floated into my mind as I rounded a corner after corner in dire hope of shaking off whatever was chasing me.

Running in circles after what seemed like eternity filled with loud thumps of my heavy breathing and terrible shrieks lapping at my feet, strange ponderings entered my head – why on earth couldn't that bastard have some trees to climb in his garden, and why did I have to jump down over that tall solid wall without checking first that I could get back out?

In a moment of self rebuke at locking myself in a rich man's fortress, I turned my head while keeping up my pace, my eyes widening at the large quantity of crimson balls, undulating in the raven dark like glowing ripe cherries on a rich branch caught in a sweeping wind. I did not realize I opened my mouth, my legs sprinting on their own volition, when a deeper shadow passed my line of vision in a blur of a movement yet I could swear that it was standing very much still.

…apart from the billowing tails of a near endless coat.

My head stopped, yet my legs were still going, slipping under me and I fell onto my hand, feeling the coldness of the night chilled grass seep through my fingers. All this time, I have not missed the sight of the red eyes coming to an abrupt halt, lining up one after another like blood soaked bullets that hit an invisible wall.

He didn't even have to move, a momentous beam of moonlight creeping over him like an angel's halo when the scarlet speckles began to drop, disappearing back into the black fabric of the night with haunting trails of submissive squeals. I lifted myself up, my mind telling me to close my mouth yet I couldn't as I gazed in expanding awe at the tiny shimmering speckles of blue dust floating upwards from the majestic curve of his shoulders. My feet yet again gained a mind of their own as they paced in the moonlit shadow's way, my hand outstretched in a want of touching the enthralling shape of light. A shape of wings no doubt.

God, I hoped the Judge was hiding inside, scared at least half-way to shitless from the broken glass and the mind-mangling ghoulish howls of his own hounds. He would shit himself fully for sure now, if he saw my tall angel in his full glory.

Speaking of the devil, as I slipped behind the tall figure of the sword wielding immortal, leaving my speech about lateness for later, the pompous Judge emerged out of a creaking door a few paces from where we stood. He held a candle close to his chest, his face distorted by the flickering glow. Still, peeking through a small crevice in my ally's coat, I could see that the fat man wasn't scared enough, more as if resigned to a certain fate or afraid too much of something else.

That was until his small dark eyes laid themselves on my glowing shield. A surprise registered in him first with a hint of disbelief, followed by a rapid change to a purity of fear as if he had just seen the devil himself beckoning to pull him down to hell. A cold shadow slid over me, and I noticed the moon no longer shone, the angel's wings now swallowed by the vast abyss of the night.

A panic swept the Judge's face and he readied to flee when a pristine ring of a metal cut the inky air, decapitating the flame clean from the wick. The tip of the blade came to an abrupt halt, a hair's width from making a double chin single. At least he had wiped off all that disgusting grease, I noted with stomach calming relief.

"Talk." Was all that could be heard at that single moment, a frostily baritone giving such contrast to the hounds' high pitched screeching frightening the night only moments ago.

An electrifying flood of righteousness entered me and I slipped out into the fat man's view like the eager reporter I should be, pen and paper sliding skillfully into my hands. The so called honored man had always used to give me a sleazy wink as he had departed our house, like he had thought that one day I would be the one who'd have to pass him a payment for his secrecy of my future sins. Yeah like hell. Funny it was to be the other way round. My dangerously narrowed eyes fastened onto his, awaiting the triumph of his shocked recognition.

But no such luck. He was squinting stiffly at the razor edge of the sword, ignoring me completely. I really had to roll my eyes.

Clearing my throat a few times in annoyance, followed by a loud cough for a good measure, I finally gained his attention. "So much for your dogs," I commented dryly, intending on getting his mind off any thoughts of an escape.

"Dogs? I don't have dogs," the Judge said in a numb bewilderment, shaking his head.

Thinking him delusional from my angel's narcotic gaze, which I myself had nearly died from, I brushed off his denial with a pinch of derision. "Then I suppose you have nothing to hide either," I said wickedly, twiddling my pen between my fingers provocatively.

"You don't know what you are doing! You can't stop them, no one can," he croaked out in a sudden explosion, his voice as if coated by thick layers of stress and mortal fear.

"I heard that one before," I scoffed with a pause. "What I haven't heard, and this might be a strange concept for you to grasp, is you naming the guilty. So get going," I said frostily.

Strangely more obliging than I expected, like he didn't care anymore, the Judge divulged the dirt on every official this town had spawned. It was sickening, to listen how not a single one of them wasn't involved.

They had brought in a gang alright, only they had no idea where the gang came from. It could have been from Hell itself for all they knew. At first, all they cared about was the money that came pouring in with their brilliant idea in the form of bribes to keep it all quiet and without interference. Until it all started to go wrong and people began to disappear in a shroud of a bloody mess. What did they do? All they did is say it could not be stopped. But I ask, what is it they meant that couldn't be stopped – the bribes or the killing? I could answer, knowing about both – the killings would not stop until there was no one to take blood splattered bribes, and I would make sure of it.

Gritting my teeth I somehow felt sorry for him, deep down wanting to let him go so that he would get the chance to wade on his knees through the wrongness of his ways. Yes, I was so damn nice. For all that, my dark angel wasn't listening to my thoughts, and reaffirmed his hold on his sword, preparing to strike the Judge down with his dead calm I had gotten so accustomed to two years ago.

"Wait! But I told you everything," the corpulent man hissed, more in a convinced arrogance than in fear. He must have expected to be paid for this information, that incorrigible bastard.

"Then, you are of no further use." I looked to my right at the sudden casual comment I didn't expect. I almost had to laugh at the angel in blue as his face, paling the hidden moon, was adorned with what I recognized as blooming enjoyment. I bet he didn't even realize how he looked, or perhaps there was still a lot I didn't know about him, like... His name.

"What's your name?" I asked before I fully analyzed how it must have sounded given the situation we were in. I didn't care.

He froze for a short moment, his katana still dead point on the Judge's throat, the said man's eyes twitching between us like he wasn't sure if we were serious or playing a stupid game.

"Michael," he lowered the sword slowly, turning his back on the Judge as he said his name like this new conversation took priority over everything else.

_Michael_. Didn't that sound like an angel's name? But what did I know of them? On the other hand, who else would have supernatural powers without looking like a troll or an imp, and had non-demon like elegance and skill, all the while not turning into a werewolf during a full moon?

"Nice name. Kind of… Normal." I turned to him in a mood for a conversation, but my eye caught a flash of a gun that came out of nowhere clutched in too far gone, irredeemable hands. The trigger was pulled before I could open my mouth to yell out a warning, when through my widening eyes I saw the edge of razor-sharp steel slice through my exhaled breath, then the bullet, and continue in a lightening of rabid strokes to reduce the Judge into what he had loved most: fine mincemeat.

The body was slashed so fast there was not a single spray of blood until it split into sickening pieces of jigsaw puzzle no longer held together. A crimson pool was left to seep into the soil through the soft green grass, fleshy chunks of what used to be human bequeathed to the creatures of the night.

"I know who you are," I said indifferently, by reflex, trying to find out what I could while he was still here and in apparent mood to talk in between killing. To be truthful I had no idea who he was, but not normal was one thing I was sure about.

"So do I," the tone of his voice dipped into territory I knew I wasn't supposed to enter. I swallowed dry air, a shot of red flashed into me like I was a naughty girl asking to be lifted up to the forbidden cookie jar. Fortunately it was dark enough not to see, the moon choosing to illuminate everything else but me. Funny that.

"He didn't even know he had dogs," I snorted, welcoming the change of subject I could provide. To my relief, his eyes from what I could see in the intermittent moonlight returned from roiling ardency to inhuman cool which seemed to be his norm. I wasn't sure which scared me more. What on earth have I disturbed?

"He didn't. They were sent here to kill him, before he talked," he really did say this much, and as was the habit now, in a completely matter-of-course way.

"But they were after me?" it was a dead fact that happened to turn into a question as I said it. The realization set in that the hounds must have been sent by whoever was on top of the corrupt food chain. By someone on my newly created list. By someone who now wanted to eliminate not only those too weak to keep their mouth shut but also me.

His disturbingly adept eyes confirmed it as he turned them to me in the most intense way, stretching out his hand to point the hilt of the now sheathed katana he held to the small piece of paper clutched in my hands.

"You have all that you need," he said too calmly, making me feel he was yet again going to disappear. _Not yet, not right now!_ I wanted to feel his thumb twitching for his sword though it didn't move, I needed to sense the voracity in his voice though it became buried under the weight of practicality. But how could I achieve anything if I waited? He had not waited for anything two years ago. I wanted to quench my thirst now, the death of the Judge bringing soothing warmth to my parched soul. It was too good to stop now.

"There are five left. We can still keep going, I know where the next one lives. It's not too far," I said eagerly, the idleness giving me goosebumps too cold to let it go. I had to keep myself warm, by the blood of falling evil.

"We shall continue tomorrow," he didn't even look at me, instead glancing toward the sky as if more interested if it was going to rain. Did he not understand how important this was to me? Did he not come here himself to help me, to finish them off?

"The night is still young," I insisted, rising frustration enticing me to make one step forward, grab his broad form and shake the absurd illusiveness out of him.

"The night reeks of death. You should go," his voice was becoming dark, darker than the sky he kept his eyes on, solemn in its finality. Gazing solely at his stony face, unusually glazed even for him, I didn't see his sword was already half way out of its sheath, or that the night thickened to a swirling mass of ominous hurricane-like clouds.

"But I need you to come with me now! I need you to kill them all!" I yelled at him, not because I wanted to but because I had to, making my voice crush through the rising wall of thundering roar that came so suddenly my mind didn't yet notice.

"Do not be so eager. It only leads to one plac…" His words didn't become torn from him by the deafening noise, he became torn from me, ripped into the sky by some invisible force.

"Michael!"

By calling out I freed myself from my obsessed stupor, peering high up as the winds picked up around me, throwing my hair out from my hooded cape. The sky was there no more, the howls easing off into violent sparks of blue that penetrated the rings of dirty gray.

Graveyard silence erupted around me together with unearthly stillness, almost deafening my ears with its empty whiteness when the clouds broke up into massive worms of smoke soaring and expanding in all directions. Only it wasn't in all direction, they were coming straight for me.

The worms puffed and coiled, their fronts shaping into heads as they pummeled closer, about to swallow me whole. The biggest, darkest one came down the fastest, bubbling like an angry demon before stopping an inch from my deeply frozen face. It looked at me.

The monster stared right at me with eyes I had known all my life. They were cruel and unfeeling, cold and vengeful moreover. They were my father's. I held the scream inside me of a sheer habit even as he so naturally placed the barrel of his gun flat to my face. His eyes, they changed, their human color taking on a deep red tinge as his handsome face twisted in a carnival of homicidal thoughts.

I knew well what he was thinking, what a bad daughter I had been when he cocked the gun. But then his visage changed into the scariest things I have ever seen. A happiness, a rejoicing pride that had never been expressed before formed on his face like a wicked blister about to burst into thousands of droplets of blood, each with a name on it, a name of the victims I was about to add to his own long winded list. He wanted me to join him, to become what he had been when without hesitation or a single doubt he squeezed the trigger and I finally screamed.

No one would help me now…

"You could have just asked," the warmth of the sudden casual voice so scarily near my ear made me jump out of my skin. I whipped round so hard I dropped my pen. I didn't even think to pick it up as it rolled under the bench I was sitting on, my gaze instead deep-diving into a placid yet storm threatening sea of blue.

I don't know how long I stared in numb blankness but it made him lose interest and start to walk away. A man of a few words. Even fewer than I had thought to put on the paper that still lay in my shaking lap. The paper! He must have been reading over my shoulder. How long has he been standing there?

"But… I thought… I thought you wanted to be left alone. To live in peace - in your house." I stammered out, the trust in my own version of the story falling apart in my confused mind.

"My house?" the tone of his deep voice lifted ever so slightly as if he was surprised. He turned just enough for me to see the risen eyebrow on his otherwise inexpressive forehead. Understanding descending into his face, his blue eyes shone intensely as he divulged a little secret with a satisfied glee. "Who said I live there."

"What? But, I thought you said…" I couldn't finish, staring in stark bewilderment at his angelic face, somehow my head tilting at the hint of his visage gaining a certain air of something dark and sinister in the soft glow of the descending sun.

"What – did I say?" he raised his snow-weaved eyebrow even higher, waiting in feigned expectancy for my answer that he knew would never come. _That cheeky devil._ He had said he had been the landlord, never a word about living there. He had been just passing through, perhaps making a short house-sitting visit. Was that house even his? He had fooled me, fooled everyone.

"I would have assumed someone such as yourself would know. Peace… It never waits for you, nor it is given. You have to fight for it." A delicate, fledgling of a smile incubated on his stern mouth, yet a smile nonetheless. It was so unreal. His bewitching eyes couldn't have been closer for discomfort as they swallowed me in my entirety. Like the very idea that guided me through the worst in my life coming to stare right in my face. Pure intimidating.

Bending his tall blue clad body, he had his arm thrown recklessly over his curved knee, naked thumb gliding in sensual malice over the polished midnight black of his katana's sheath.

In that instance, the events of my mind's past few days played in front of me like a very old, black and white film.

I went to the police station, and to the crime scene to investigate, talking to all those people which led me to that creepy back street of the town. At the sight of the bloodstains I have found there smeared across the unkept pavement and crumbling walls, the most hideous monsters materialized in my mind. They were the same kind that didn't value another's life, the kind who became slaves to their inability to think for themselves and resist what has been the easiest way out: destruction. Even I needed to fight back the same way, I wanted to kill what needed to be punished, and bask in the afterglow of a deserved victory of good over evil.

All this time, _my dark angel_ had been there, in my head. He had been my only hope, my only guidance, ever since that night two years ago, despite his eyes warning me to never go down his path, to never be like him. He had gone below too far, it was too late for him.

Yet I watched him and spoke to him in my mind, as I would not have mustered to go on and absorb the strength to seek out and confront all those responsible for the atrocities in this fear stricken town.

I would not have gone to the Judges house, and would not have thrown the bricks in his big gaping windows in the middle of the night, not if I hadn't imagined my angel's glorious wings unfolding in their imposing might right next to me.

I hadn't been running away from bloodthirsty hounds, only from my own momentary flash of conscience, or was it fear, that told me to get out before it was too late. That was till I had come to a halt at the ghostly apparition of the Judge walking right in front of me with his candle from inside of his house.

Fortunately for my heavily beating heart, the Judge had had his own idea of dying, spilling out his guts to me in tiredness of his wicked life before folding down like a defeated titan after a massive heart attack. Or maybe he had just eaten too much that night. I didn't really need to know.

More importantly, I found out who they were, and what they did, killing them all in my satisfied mind as I wrote it all down, as it was all I could do. Too much for a young girl to do on her own. Killing was such a burden on a mind recovering from the disease of lapse in justice. I could not have done anything more.

But I was wrong…

My dark angel came to life, staring into my wavering soul, bringing my salvation in the form of a soon to be finished story.

It may have been too late for him, but it wasn't too late for me. I knew that now.

My smile could not have been more sinister, more like a devil's sneer as I lifted the half fulfilled story to his casually resting, fingerlessly gloved hand. It was all there, the names, the involvements, the proof of the crimes. The list was complete.

I looked darkly to his very much real, mysteriously shining eyes, stark still with a hint of awaiting expectation.

"It's time to take out the new trash and send it where it belongs," I said with a pause to swallow to chase off the remaining vapory shreds of violence and of my father's disturbingly smiling visage from my clearing head, then added head high in a dead set resolution, "to jail!"

Call it a fata morgana but I knew it was there, the negligible approving glint in his eyes accompanied by the slightest relieving, almost smiling change in the stern curve of his lips. All that, no matter how small, told me more than I could possibly need:

I finally knew that I was worth saving.


End file.
